


Babies and Other Bad Omens

by OzGreen



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Aziraphale is just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing, Baby, Babysitting, Crowely's plants, Crowley's got a good heart, Fluff and Humor, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Plot, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2020-07-09 05:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19882132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OzGreen/pseuds/OzGreen
Summary: The angel, on the other hand, looked unabashedly unashamed of himself as he took a bite of the pale pink frosted cake that waited on the plate in front of him. Crowley rested his elbows on the table with his chin in his hands, watching. There was no reason to fight it. The matter was already settled, after all.Which was how, for the second time this century, Crowley had ended up holding a baby.





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t uncommon these days to see Aziraphale and Crowley dining together. They had eaten at their current haunt so many times in the last six months that the table in the far corner was always available for them, no miracles needed. Their waiter, who was very fond of his regulars for reasons that had to do not just with generous tipping but because of that incident involving the Bentley (1), was avoiding their table. It was the first time he’d heard the two speaking in raised voices and he thought it best to politely pretend he didn’t.

“Why _me_?” asked Crowley, and the words took on the shape of déjà vu. The demon had asked that same question when he’d been given the baby. The antichrist, Adam. Before the apocalypse-that-wasn’t. When Crowley had finally let himself stare down the realities of what living on a finite mortal earth were going to be: a hell of a lot of dead children and one endless angelic war.

“You don’t work,” said Aziraphale his hands primly at his stomach.

“Neither do you, anymore.”

“I have the bookshop.”

Crowley shot Aziraphale a long look over his sunglasses. Just drunk enough to flash a little of his unnatural self, despite the public setting. Their waiter walked by, head bent down, oblivious.

“It’s only for a week,” said Aziraphale his voice going soft and pleasant as if the matter was already settled.

“Just a week. Hardly a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things.” Despite the sarcastic tone he’d used, it was true. What were seven days when compared to the 6,000 years they’d lived through?

Because the angel could be a right bastard when he wanted to be, Aziraphale gave one slow unnecessary blink as if to make the point. 

“I knew you’d see the light.” 

The demon winced at this. The angel, on the other hand, looked unabashedly unashamed of himself as he took a bite of the pale pink frosted cake that waited on the plate in front of him. Crowley rested his elbows on the table with his chin in his hands, watching. There was no reason to fight it. The matter was already settled, after all.

Which was how, for the second time this century, Crowley had ended up holding a baby.

Newt and Anathema’s baby to be exact. Eight months old, chubby, and smelling of sunshine and spoiled milk. The demon gently bounced the baby on his knee while Newt began to repeat the list of instructions that he’d already spent the last 30 minutes rattling off. Crowley let his attention slip from the conversation to the stacks of books that were constantly migrating from Aziraphale’s bookshop to all over the flat (2).

“And the emergency numbers are _also_ written on a laminated card in the first aid kit. You do know how to use a phone?” Newt kept lifting up his hands as if to take the baby back. Crowley made a sound of non-committal just to watch the man squirm.

“Now, dear,” said Aziraphale reappearing from the kitchen, clutching at a steaming cup. He’d escaped part way through the human’s endless rambling to 'put some more water on.' “Crowley was godfather, nanny and tutor to a human child for 11 years. Destiny is in good hands.”

“They’re the wicked hands of the damned and I won’t hear anyone say otherwise. Even you, angel.” The demon placed a soft kiss into the baby’s curls.

“Okay,” said Newt, drawn out. Clearly, he wasn’t sure if any of this _was_ okay.

Aziraphale sat next to Newt on the love seat. He set the tea on the rather ugly post-modern coffee table in front of them. The angel could just as easily have miracled some more hot water into the man’s old cup instead of spending ten minutes making a new one but he hadn’t. Newt said thank you in a sincere voice that was mostly about the angel being back, not the tea he hadn’t wanted.

“It’s just this whole business with Anethema’s second cousin, and the three pages of prophesy that ended up posted to a cathedral in the States of all places. Things have gone a bit-” The scruffy human lifted the tea to his lips, then set the cup back down without drinking any.

“Wiggly-wobbly.” Aziraphale supplied. The look on Newt’s face indicated that wasn’t the phrase he’d been thinking of.

“Yes. I suppose.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you were able to charter a flight –“

“Buy a ticket.” Crowley interrupted.

“On such short notice. We really mustn’t keep you.”

Both Aziraphale and Crowley walked Newt to the door, the angel making soft noises of understanding with each additional instruction that spewed from the man. “-and 36.4 C is the normal temperature human babies are meant to be. You do have to feed her. Did I mention that?”

“You sssssure did,” Crowley muttered as he slunk along, the baby on his hip, her tiny hands tangled in the soft cotton cloth of the low v of his v-neck.

“Several times.” Beamed Aziraphale so brightly it could have been mistaken for ethereal light. “You also wrote down such detailed instructions.”

“Six bloody pages just on feeding.”

Newt seemed confused when he found himself already on the second floor landing that led to the sleek elevator that would take him out of the building. The angel and the demon were in the doorway of the flat, waving him off. He gave Destiny one last hug and kiss. “Well. I guess. I should… go then.”

“Do be safe, dear.”

“Don’t make an orphan of the baby.”

Newt turned to leave and heard the door shut behind him.

“Everything is going to be fine.” He told himself as the elevator descended. He was already making his way out of the complex by the time Destiny had really kicked-off; wailing so loudly her father surely wouldn’t have left if he’d heard it.

_______________

1)

Westley had started hanging with an unsavory crowd. They weren’t bad people, but sometimes they did bad things. Which was how he’d found himself with a crowbar in hand, outside a house whose windows he’d smashed in. The three older men had slipped out the back with a bunch of electronics and he could hear the sound of their car squealing off and sirens in the distance. They’d plumb forgotten him. The waiter turned part time thief probably would have ended up in the back of a squad car, if not for the Bentley. He’d recognized it at once. Sitting there on the empty street. Unlocked. Key in the ignition. Westley had driven himself home and the car had been gone in the morning.

2)

Crowley was a bit flummoxed by how much of the angel’s things kept finding their way into his flat. Aziraphale so rarely spent time there. The bookshop was still their normal common ground. Yet, ever since the angel had crashed at his home after the apocalypse-that-wasn’t the flat had started getting a bit soft and messy. 

Three of Aziraphale’s floral tea cup were currently in the cupboard, stacks of books kept popping up, and the kitschy throne the demon had been very fond of had reshaped itself into a plush couch-for-two some months ago. Secretly, the demon was becoming concerned that it wasn’t the angel at all, but his own nerves about Aziraphale not being comfortable with his décor manifesting themselves in a most embarrassing way.


	2. Chapter 2

Anathema had only intended to stay in the States for four days.

The scrawled notes from her second cousin had been vague in a way that Anathema, who had grown up reading the prophecies of Agnes Nutter, was used to. Anathema was fairly certain she was meant to retrieve the lost prophecies. Where they were, why they had been sent to the good old US of A, and what exactly this business about blessing a bush had to do with anything – she wasn’t sure. She was sure she needed another week and that Newt was important somehow. Well, of course Newt was important, to her – but he was also important for some other reason.

The witch pressed the phone tighter against her ear.

The hotel room she’d booked was the sort of place people stayed when they were on a business trip with a company that would rather save money then care about things like bedbugs or clean bedding. It had been the only hotel she could find on such short notice so close to the last known place those pesky prophesies had been seen. Currently, she was standing in the center of the room, a perplexed expression on her face. She could hear Destiny’s faint wailing in the background.

“As I said. Everything’s going swimmingly,” Aziraphale said.

“Angel. I told you. You can miracle the water the right temperature, or you can miracle the ingredients together, but you can’t just miracle formula out of nothing. Do you know how delicate a baby’s stomach is?”

“It’s all going fine.” Aziraphale had raised his voice, as if he thought to drown out Crowley and the baby. “Did I mention how sorry we were to hear about your second cousin? Our sincerest condolences. Have you been able to sort out what her letter meant?”

“Still working on it.”

“Are you using my phone?” The demon sounded closer, now. Anathema heard a faint whispering.

“Is it the witch or the computer killer?” asked Crowley, making no attempt to lower his voice.

“Are you still there?” asked Anathema.

The response came from a peeved sounding Crowley. “Hey, Anathema. The baby’s mad you abandoned her. I told her it was only temporary, but she can’t understand English yet.”

“Thank you both for watching her. I’m sorry it was last minute.” Anathema sat down on her hotel room bed, crisscrossing her legs in the way she felt was most comfortable. “Destiny always gets a bit fussy around witching hour (1), but I know she’s in good hands.”

“Don’t you start too,” growled the demon. Anathema wasn’t sure if Crowley was still talking to her.

“On an unrelated note, you two haven’t seen any ravens lately, have you? I mean, more than usual.” Anathema had spent the last day tracking the flight patterns of twelve different species of birds. She was starting to think this part of the note wasn't referring to the birds around the Cathedral at all, and might actually have something to do with London.

This time it was clear Crowley’s response wasn’t for Anathema. “It’s fine. Give her back to me.”

“Ravens?” She repeated, then tilted her head in thought and added, “Or crows?”

“How did you manage to dump salt all over the kitchen?” There was a long pause, and the demons voice was getting fainter. “The formula is right there. No. They don’t look anything alike.”

It was Aziraphale who spoke into the phone next in a pleasantly earnest voice. “Well, this has been delightful. We really should catch up again soon.”

He was so earnest that the witch didn’t realize at first that he was hastily ending the conversation. “Give a kiss to Destiny for me, will you?” She started to say something more, but the dial tone on the hotel phone let her know she’d been hung up on. She shook her head. Unlike her husband, she wasn’t concerned about their two babysitters. At least, not yet.

Anathema didn’t have the lack of temporal focus to be a proper prophetess. She was too logical to get any grand glimpses of the future, but sometimes she did get little slivers. Which was how she had known, in that way sometimes you just know, that Newt wasn’t supposed to bring the baby with him or leave her with his mother. Destiny was exactly where she was meant to be.

_______________

There weren’t a lot of things Heaven and Hell agreed on. Oh, the small things sometimes: their hate of jazz hands, cigarettes, and ice cream vans (2). When it came to the big things, there had been only one: Armageddon was meant to happen. Sooner, rather than later.

When it hadn’t, Heaven and Hell had both found something new they agreed on: neither side was very fond of Aziraphale or Crowley. Nearly three years post-apocalypse-that-wasn’t and the legions of angry angels and demons were still chomping at the bit for a war. Their respective leaders had managed to keep it all from spilling out on to Earth and in theory everyone was back to their normal daily grind, waiting.

Except…

If you had known the vertical coordinates of Heaven and Hell (taking into account ethereal echo and hell-fire smoke displacement), you would have found it. The exact spot where all those angry feelings had come to manifest. Smack dab in the middle of the space between where good and evil lived, and laterally just between Mayfair and Soho. If you had a good eye you might have even seen it. Like a faint brushing of grey that began to swirl and take weight. Inky, wet and dripping down.

Far below were two women, huddled under a single umbrella, waiting for the bus.

“What is that?” asked the woman with long grey-hair, watching thick globs of oily muck slide down their canopy and pool on the ground at their feet.

“Acid rain,” said the other elderly woman. “What did I tell you? It’s going to be 1952 all over again at this rate.”

She was referring to London’s great smog crisis that hadn’t even needed much of a nudge from Pollution to quietly slaughtered off 12,000 people. Luckily for her, it was nothing of the sort. No, this dirty mass of something wasn’t going to just go killing anyone willy-nilly. It had two somebodies specifically in mind.

_______________

“You really can’t feel it?”

They had, over the centuries, had this same conversation on several occasions.

“Still a demon,” said Crowley, gently patting the back of Destiny. She had, in one last screaming tantrum about how unjust it was neither of her parents were there, fallen dead asleep with her mouth still open.

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand and lifted it so that it was a few inches above the baby. “No? Radiating off of her. Like the shine on an ice cream van in the summer or-” The angel removed his hand and sat a little straighter on the love seat beside Crowley as he thought. “Fresh strawberry jam. On crepes.”

“Love,” said Crowley and at the look of delight on Aziraphale’s face he rolled his eyes and added. “Can’t say I feel much of anything at all.”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale. “It’s no matter.” Already he was brightening, again. “The important thing, is she's very well taken care of, her parents do so love her.”

Destiny let out a little sound and the demon returned his hand to the absent patting.

“Well, should be off then.” The angel stood, straightening his vest

“What?!” Crowley’s legs tried to stand while his torso tried not to shift the baby. In the end, he let himself sprawl back, as if he’d simply been intending to take up more of the couch.

“It’s already past one isn’t it?” The angel said as way of explanation. “The bookshop will have to be open in just seven hours.”

“And? You don’t even sleep half the-“ The demon stopped talking, pressing rather flatly against the cushions behind him. Aziraphale had leaned forward.

“I’ve been trying to take this whole running a business thing a bit more seriously now that it’s my main job,” said Aziraphale, serenely.

“Mhmm.” Crowley eyed the angel, who had continued to lean down until at eye level with the demon he planted a warm kiss on the baby’s brow.

“So, you’re just going to… leave.” Crowley finished saying to the now empty flat. The angel had already miracle himself home.

Crowley assessed his place, strewn with baby clothing, bottles and who knows what else. Then, he turned his attention to the equally messy, drooling baby. She looked half-way demonic with her mouth wide and her face drenched from tears and snot. The thought warmed him a little. “Guess it’s just you and me, kid.” He let his head lull back and rested his eyes, listening to the baby's even breath and the soft sound of rain.

_______________

1)

Every frazzled sleep deprived parent knows about the witching hour. It is a special period of time between 5pm and 12am when babies become inconsolable for hours on end. They want not for food or affection and will scream their discontent for all to hear. Crowley, while having no part in the creation of the witching hour, had tried to get the phrase “the devil’s hour” to catch on. Alas, he’d had little success.

2)

Both Heaven and Hell were taking credit for the current ice cream van ban that was spreading through parts of the London. Hell considered it wonderfully devious since the ban primarily targeted areas children tended to congregate. Heaven declared it a rousing success since it encouraged good health and decreased pollution.


	3. Chapter 3

The day hadn’t been half bad so far. Crowley had discovered that Destiny liked Queen nearly as much as he did, and that with her hands braced on the coffee table and a little support, she would bounce herself clumsily to the tempo.

“Almost as a good of a dancer as a demon,” he’d told her.

He’d learned that mashed carrots were her favorite and peas could go fuck themselves.

The baby was also strangely enthralled with his plants. He’d lifted her up to see them better. Her tiny eyes had gone wide, her hands reaching out, and she’d made a soft babbling as she tried to bury her face into the foliage. Then, she’d laughed, and Crowley had felt the plants amusement. He’d taken her out of the room before any of them started thinking he was getting soft.

By the time it was eleven, he’d decided that it had been long enough to justify calling Aziraphale and tempting him to a nice lunch break at the bakery near the bookshop.

“I just need a few more moments,” the demon said in a bored voice, staring at the menu intently through his sunglasses.

Crowley adjusted Destiny on his hip. The excess fabric of the sling was decoratively pulled through a metal ring and cascaded down in an elegant way that went rather nicely with the sharp red shirt he was wearing.

After putting Destiny down properly the night before, Crowley had spent several hours on his phone filling up his virtual shopping cart. He was particularly pleased with the baby sling he’d found at some posh kids shop that came in a color called Marian blue (1). Newt had brought a utilitarian grey baby carrier to be worn on one’s stomach. The demon had already burned the thing to ash.

“And which did you say were the seasonal items?” Crowley asked and then didn’t listening as the barista began to list them off.

Destiny clasped her hand at the fabric of his shirt. It was a soft cotton blend, but fitted in a way that showed off his angles. On sale too, and not because he’d wanted it to be. Crowley used to simply will his clothing into existence: folding himself in whatever his fancy manifested. Aziraphale was always behind the times and Crowley had assumed the angel’s attachment to his physical clothing was much the same as his attachment to his books – or the demon’s for his Bentley.

One drunken evening Aziraphale had leaned in and confided that while he thought wearing real clothing was the angelic sort of thing to do, he also rather liked the _feel_ of the fabric. This part was whispered against Crowley’s ear as if it was the kind of heresy that shouldn’t be said too loudly.

“Like when you tried to magic us that-” Aziraphale had waved his hands in the air as if he could catch the word that had escaped him. “You know, that muffin croissant.”

“Mussiant,” Crowley had tried. “Crossin, Cuffiant? Eh-” He’d shrugged and downed his glass of wine. “Doesn’t matter. It was disgusting.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale had said, pouring them both another glass. “That’s my… That’s my point, dear. It was fine at the bakery, though. Sometimes things are just better when they’re made by people.”

“Mmmm.” Crowley had meant it to be a ‘I’m listening, do go on,’ sound. Instead, it had come out very doubtful. So, Aziraphale had insisted he feel the difference between their clothing. After some time of comparing them both very, very, thoroughly, the demon had finally agreed. Crowley had begun ordering his clothing from the internet soon after.

While the demon might not have magicked the clothing he and the baby were currently wearing, it had been through some miraculous chance all three stores he’d ordered from happened to have what he needed in exactly the right sizes and had already packaged them up for him. A bleary-eyed man, who normally delivered newspapers, had knocked at Crowley’s door at eight that morning, clutching at the boxes with the dazed look of someone who thought they might be dreaming.

“Our blended beverages are very popular,” suggested the young woman politely, looking over Crowley’s shoulder at the growing line. “Or maybe I could start the order for the people behind you while you-”

“Could you tell me the ingredients in that espresso one?” Crowley asked, gesturing vaguely at the section on the menu that was full of caffeinated beverages. Destiny stuffed her fist in her mouth and slobbered drool on the counter.

The barista’s smile had gone a bit stiff. He made her guess four times before he agreed that _that was_ the drink he’d been pointing to. Once she listed the ingredients, he asked her to read him the ingredients from the chocolate sauce in it. He delighted at the groans and dark muttering behind him. After another ten minutes he left without ordering anything. It wasn’t even the café he was going to be meeting Aziraphale at, he’d just been killing time.

He walked the two blocks over and was just about to enter the little bakery Aziraphale was fond of, when his phone began to ring. It was so rare for the angel to be the one calling, that he simply stared at the number for a moment, until Destiny tried to grab at it.

“Yeaaah?” he asked slowly.

“Crowley. Brilliant. I was just calling you on this mobile device to let you know that something's come up.”

“Something's come up?” Crowley repeated.

“Yes. At the bookshop.”

“Uh huh.”

“Customers. Customers came up. Which is why I can’t leave.”

“So, I should come over _now_?” Crowley knew what the angel sounded like when he was lying. Aziraphale knew he knew.

“No. No, no. Everything’s fine.” That sounded sincere. “You order us something to drink, and bring it by in about. Oh. Forty minutes.”

“Mhmmm,” said the demon. “Is there something you want to tell me-“

“Yes. Bring some of those delightful fairy cakes. You know the ones I like, with the pink frosting and the - well anyway, must be going. See you soon.”

Crowley looked at his phone, then looked at Destiny. She was looking up, but not at him. Her attention was on a row of crows that had settled on the eaves of the building above them. One of them let out a loud caw. As if drawn by the sound, three more appeared in the air and settled onto the roof, also.

“Bloody hell,” muttered Crowley.

_______________

Aziraphale set his mobile phone down on the stack of books in front of him, then he turned to face Gabriel. 

“I told you not to come back here.”

“Not even a ‘good to see you’? Aziraphale. I’m disappointed.”

“You tried to kill me,” said the angel.

“Wasn’t anything personal. Heavenly duties, you know the drill.” He put on the kind of smile someone who’d only ever heard of the concept might wear.

“What is it you want?” It was rare for Aziraphale to use a tone like that. It would have made Crowley proud. Exactly the kind of menace of an angel who would wield a flaming sword.

“It’s called a social call. How’s everything been down here? With the humans? Still love sullying your celestial form with food I can see.” He let out a harsh chuckle. “And other Earthly pleasures, no doubt. How _is_ your demon, by the way?”

Aziraphale’s eyes narrowed and the temperature in the bookshop dropped, noticeably. “Get on with it. Or get out.”

Gabriel’s expression turned particularly pinched. “Perhaps,” he said finally, taping his fingers idly on the counter between them. “I need to ask you for a very, small, almost inconsequential, tiny, little… favor.”

Aziraphale shoulder dropped slightly. Against his better judgement he asked, “What kind of favor?”

_______________

1) Marian blue was the particular shade of blue that artists normally depicted Mother Mary in. At a certain point in time it had been a dreadfully expensive pigment. Patrons who wanted to have it appear in their commissioned work had to pay for it separately from the artists' fee. That was the appeal. While, it had been humans who had discovered the costly hue, it was Crowley who had promoted it in religious art. He whispered little temptations about how the truly devout wouldn't mind paying a little extra. It's not as if the obscenely wealthy couldn't afford to let go of a bit more of their mounds of money. If they truly loved God. 

Truth was, it was simply a color Crowley liked. He figured if the fourteen year old unwed mother was going to be immortalized in all her teen mom glory, she deserved to be wearing something a bit more lavish then the actual clothing she and her betrothed could afford.


	4. Chapter 4

Gabriel had always been certain of his place in Heaven’s ranks. He’d never had doubts in the great system he helped uphold. God’s will was divine and unquestionable. It wasn’t that his opinion on that had changed, exactly – questioning God must be bad, it was a fallen angel offence. But… and this was the part he kept getting stuck on: _if no one knew what God’s will was, then how could you know if you were going against it._

After all, he’d been sure the apocalypse was predestined. His angels had all dotted their i's and crossed their t's. All the forms had been filled. Every angel and demon armed and ready. Then. Nothing. Gabriel lifted the glass, swirling its contents. Clear enough it could have been water.

“Disgusting,” he said, with sniff. Referring not just to the vodka in his hand, but the general decorum. He and Beelzebub were in a dirty motel room in a grimy corner of London that wasn’t fit for an angel. The demon looked comfortable enough, sprawled across the bed. 

"It’s better after the third. Is a magic number three.” If not for the slightest slur of their words, Beelzebub would have seemed far too calmly bored to be sloshed. 

“You’ve had six,” said Gabriel coolly.

“Which is divisible by three. Drink it. You aren’t going to want to be sober for this.” Their vague frown stayed in place. 

He decided against drinking anything. 

It was a choice he deeply regretted.

“I don’t understand it,” said Gabriel sitting stiffly in the bed afterwards. Still, a bit shell shocked.

“Either she doesn’t care, or-” 

“Don’t say it.”

“She’s dead.” The prince of hell shrugged. “My money’s on dead.” They looked entirely unruffled both by their suggestion and their recent activities.

“God’s not dead.”

Beelzebub patted Gabriel’s arm in a way that could have been considered consoling if they weren’t a demon and the literal leader of the legends of Hell. “Humans made a movie called that. Seen it?”

Gabriel shook his head glumly.

“Real popcorn flick. One of ours.” They reached over Gabriel to retrieve his untouched drink from bedside table. 

“We must have done something wrong,” Gabriel insisted. 

Beelzebub lifted their free hand up palm down, and made a so-so gesture. “Close enough.”

“But. After that whole Nephilim business, God made it very clear we weren’t supposed to fornicate. Or-” Gabriel pulled up the bed covers a little higher over his chest, tilting his head to watch Beelzebub down the last of his drink. “Do you think she only cares if it’s with a human?”

“There’s lots of them around here, you could try and find out.” They dropped the empty cup onto the bedding.

“Disgusting,” said Gabriel for the second time that evening. “A human. I’ve already sullied my body enough for one evening, thank you very much.”

For the first time in all their evening Beelzebub’s expression shifted, their lips flattening just slightly, and their eyes narrowing. “Wait. Didn’t you and Mary?”

“Mary?”

“Mother Mary. You ‘filled her with the Holy Spirit’ or something.”

“Figuratively.”

“Huh. Well, there are going to be some very disappointed demons for that betting pool.” Beelzebub yawned then stepped out of the cheap blue sheets, a harsh black suit magicked itself onto the prince. “Tell you what. Let’s give this a few days. Try out some more sins. Kill some people.”

“I’ve killed loads of people. That’s not a sin (1).”

“Well, other things, then.” A few hopeful flies flitted from the motel trash onto her shoulder. “Welcome back.” The demon whispered to them, before turning towards Gabriel. “Either God will call down her mighty wrath on you and show her presence, or she won’t. We both want the apocalypse, but neither of us want to be caught standing in front of our troops-” They gestured to Gabriel who was in the process of standing, “with our pants down again. Better for both of us to make sure she’s not going to intervene.”

Gabriel didn’t like it, but he agreed. It was the whole reason he was there, after all. 

_______________

The bookshop was even more cluttered then it had been pre-apocalypse-that-wasn’t. The devil’s boy hadn’t gotten all of Aziraphale’s collection of books quiet right when he had reformed the store. The angel had been using his free time to hunt down every missing book, and quiet a few others, besides. 

“There you are my, dear,” Aziraphale delighted as they walked through the door. His arms outstretched, not for Crowley, but for the pastry bag in his hand. Instead, Crowley handed over the baby.

The demon breathed in loudly, then wrinkled his nose. “It’s smelling particularly ethereal in here.”

The angel flushed. “Oh?” 

He bent down, and set on Destiny to the floor, holding her hands and helping her wobble in ungainly steps. She managed four before rocking on her feet precariously. Then she wrenched her hands free and sat down hard. She let out a startled sound. Her little face scrunched up and she stared at Aziraphale as if trying to tell from him how she should be feeling. Aziraphale looked just as surprised.

Crowley bent down and tickled Destiny’s tummy. “What a good little tumble you just had, you are already an expert at falling.” 

Aziraphale took his cue from the demon and crouched down also. “And that’s a compliment from someone who knows a thing or two about falling.” The look Aziraphale was giving Crowley as he said this was _something_. Bright and beaming, and definitely… _something,_. But the demon wasn’t quiet sure what kind of something.

Destiny clapped her hands in delight and giggled. 

After story time and snacks, an hour of play, two customers scared off, a bottle, and another story time Destiny fell asleep in the pack n' play that happened to be in a nearby aisle of books, waiting for the baby as if it had always been there. It looked such a part of the bookstore, Aziraphale couldn’t say for certain when it had first appeared.

Crowley leaned against the counter near the unused register, watching Aziraphale put the sleeping baby down. 

“Gabriel.” He said finally when the angel made his way back over. It had taken him a while, but the demon finally recognized the smell that lingered in the shop. Aziraphale didn't deny it. “If there’s some trouble, you should let me know now.” The demon looked at once casually draped, and at the same time stiffly uncomfortable. Sunglasses pressed up to his nose, and his back too straight. 

“Do sit down,” said Aziraphale, gesturing to one of the plush chairs scattered about the bookstore as if anyone besides themselves would stay long enough to enjoy a read.

Crowley sat down, and his friend took from behind the counter a small box and placed it carefully in Crowley's lap. “He brought this by. Asked me to do a favor for him. Needs it covered in consecrated ground from a church two days drive from here.” He wrung his hands, turning his face to watch where Destiny lay, her crib surrounded by stacks of books, she was deep in sleep.

The demon picked up the box. It was small, but heavy, like the sort of thing one might put expensive jewelry in. He opened it and peered inside. Then he shut it quickly. Shuttering, and he handed it back. “Is that what I think it is?”

“I’m not sure,” said Aziraphale. “It does appear to be a part of his. Oh. You know.” 

“Soul?” Crowley wasn’t certain, either. Their kind didn’t have souls exactly.

“Well, yes. Like that. A bit of his grace, I suppose.”

“And he just ripped it out of himself, and gave it to you? With orders to bury it?”

Aziraphale sat himself primly on the edge of the arm rest of the chair Crowley currently sat in. “It would appear so. Though he used the term 'entomb' and his instructions were a very specific. About how and where to put it.” Aziriphale opened the box a crack, and they both leaned over looking at the strange illuminant grace as it shifted in box. 

“That can’t be good.” Crowley put his hands over Aziriphale’s and shut the box again.

“It must be good,” said Aziraphel. Doubt creeping into his voice. “He is an angel, after all."

It was a sentiment Crowley himself had once believed, early after the fall. That those who remained in heaven must be inherently good by their nature. Crowley flattened his lips and hoped the faint hiss that had escaped hadn’t been audible. 

The demon did not remind Aziraphale that angels had been planning waging a holy war on earth that was going to kill of most of the people. Which could not be considered “good” without a lot of mental gymnastics. His angel was increasingly acknowledging the moral greys of heaven, but Crowley didn’t like to press things. Aziraphale hadn’t fallen yet, but, well, you never knew what kind of questions were the sort an angel shouldn’t ask.

Instead, Crowley let his lips part and said, “Road trip, then. When are we leaving?”

“ _We_ aren’t.”

“Aren’t we?”

Aziraphale’s voice softened. “We can’t very well take Destiny with us. Her parents are trusting us to keep her safe. And Gabriel asked me to go on my own.”

Which is how Crowley ended up back at his flat, alone, with a cranky baby who really would have rather she had kept sleeping at the bookstore. 

“I hear you,” Crowley agreed as she fussed. He was just as cranky.

Crowley had told Aziriphale that his plan sounded poorly thought out. Who normally drove the angel everywhere, after all? Transporting far distance by miracle alone was a risk. If something went wrong it wasn’t as if the angel could get another body. Public transport, perhaps?

“I was thinking,” Aziraphale had rested his hands on his stomach, his back straight. “I could borrow the Bentley.”

The very thought of it. But Crowley had stood, nodded his head firmly, and said, “fine.” With a bland tone and a toss of his shoulders. “Come by tomorrow afternoon to retrieve it.” And he’d left with Destiny.

Eventually, with the help of some magicked nursery rhymes Crowley vaguely remembered from the late 1800s (2) and a phone call to Destiny's parents, the baby fell back asleep. But Crowley - who was very fond of sloth and slept despite not needing to, could not. He sat in the darkness of his flat staring out across the city, and so lost in his own thoughts was he that he did not see it. 

There, at the edge of the road, where the concrete and the grey night sky met, a slinking shadow of darkness. Quietly creeping along with each hour. Sludging its way past the bushes, past the storm drain, and then past the Bentley. Crowley, as if some part of his instincts had realized what his conscious mind had not, snapped his fingers. The soft humming melody of Hush Little Bastard flattened into nothing, and the inky black flattened also: waiting in the porous holes of the concrete stairs that led up to the entrance of the very building Crowley lived in. 

_______________

1) 

Angels had long been used as the righteous hand of God. Gabriel had once been commanded to destroy all those bastard children of angel and humans who had been born of sinful fornication. And he had. 

Every 18th of March from the 1588s until the 1921 humans had feasted in his honor. Not that he cared about that sort of thing, of course, but it had been a nice reminder that the things he’d done for God mattered. It’s not as if the almighty herself was one to send thank you notes. And Gabriel had had to get his hands dirty more times then he’d like to admit. Not that he was complaining… he’d never complain about the will of God. 

2) 

Crowley remembered most of the melodies, but he wasn't quiet sure he'd gotten the lyrics right.


End file.
